Wait, there's more to that 1960 Elon play

After having seen the end of the Alabama-Auburn football game, which was decided by a 108-yard return of a failed field goal by Alabama, I realized I had seen that same situation before.

You remember … the 108-yard return of a failed field goal by an Elon player in 1960 to defeat Catawba. That run by George Wooten was a highlight in Elon sports history.

I told some people about it, some people who had not realized or remembered that had happened. And pretty soon, it was in newspapers, on TV and everywhere — before my Sunday column.

One day this week I learned there was a second chapter to that Wooten story, and I have not told anyone about it this time.

A quick review: On Oct. 22, 1960, Elon played Catawba in its homecoming football game. Catawba was ahead 12-7 with 20 seconds left. For some reason they tried a field goal on the last play of the game. It went wide, and George Wooten took it eight yards deep in his end zone and ran it 108 yards for a touchdown. Elon won 13-12.

The play captured national attention, with the Associated Press making it the Football Oddity for the 1960 season.

Now the second chapter.

Flash ahead a year to 1961. It is Elon’s homecoming game again, and this time Western Carolina is the opponent.

The score is 9-8 (sounds like baseball) in favor of the visiting team in the game played at Burlington’s Memorial Stadium.

There are two seconds left in the game. Elon is in field goal range, so they line up, and the kick goes straight and long. It is good! Elon wins 11-9. And the kicker? George Wooten.

While I was at the 1960 game on assignment with a camera, I was not at the 1961 game. But Coach Jerry Tolley passed along the story of Wooten’s second last-second game winner. The coach reminded me that Wooten was the Elon quarterback, not a running back as I had said last week. But he sure was running on that 108-yard return.

Coach Tolley knows a bit about football. He began coaching at Elon in 1967 as an assistant to Coach Shirley (Red) Wilson, and that was a high period in Elon football history, as there was a winning percentage of well over 60 percent, with a trip to the national championship finals.

When Coach Wilson moved on in 1977, Jerry Tolley became head coach.

He only coached five years, but his record was 48-11-2. That is an 80.6 percent winning average. A sportswriter said of Tolley’s career it was “one of the most spectacular stretches” in North Carolina college football coaching.

In 1980 and in 1981, Tolley directed his teams to the NAIA national championships, putting Elon athletics on a level never before achieved. And then he retired at the age of 39. Five years was enough.

He is in the Elon Sports Hall of Fame of course, and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, The NAIA Hall, the East Carolina Hall and some others as well. And in addition to all that, he has written six very successful books on the art of coaching football.

He worked in various positions after leaving coaching, including a time with Elon’s office of development.

And then he found a new career. Politics. He currently serves as mayor of Elon, an office he won again this year with no opposition.

Now head coach emeritus at Elon, he holds close links with current players, and he serves as a mentor to the coaches, doing what he can to help the tradition of Elon football.

I appreciated his e-mail this week, telling me of the second chapter of the George Wooten story. It added an exciting footnote to the story of that 1960 touchdown run.

And oh yes. There is one last element of this 1961 story that I failed to mention — the story of Wooten’s winning field goal.

It just happens that the game-winning field goal was the first that Wooten had ever attempted in a college game.

Don Bolden is editor emeritus of the Times-News. His column appears every Sunday. He can be contacted at DBolden202@aol.com.